I DON'T KNOW I DON'T KNOW I DON'T KNOW!!!

This semester has been so intense, and so full of concepts, issues and activities, I don't even know how to explain it. In fact, it has been so full, I haven't been processing it. It's like I've reached some kind of saturation point, and my mind just won't take anymore. I have a feeling that I'm going to look back on this time a few months from now and say, "That was a really great program. It really changed me, and I learned a lot." But I won't be able to say anything specific. It's just TOO MUCH!

The time has come to write the LAST paper of the semester. It's due on Tuesday. I feel like if I were going to do a good job on this, I should have started last month. I feel like it's too late already. I'm really panicking, and I don't even know how to begin.

Check this out:

"What types of social change you think are necessary to reduce poverty and inequality and how you assess the adequacy of various social change strategies very much depends on your analysis of the causes of poverty and inequality. The intention of this assignment is to help you solidify, for now, your analysis of the causes and reproduction of poverty and inequality.

As you know, MUST takes an interdisciplinary approach to understanding urban poverty and inequality. We have studied a number of systems: economic systems, geographic systems, housing, educational systems, and the welfare systems. We have made the claim that all of these systems and structures are interconnected and interrelated in many ways as they influence people's life chances and individual and collective behavior. You've examined major theories of poverty and inequality. This assignment gives you a chance to tie all of these pieces together to form an overall analysis. This is really a chance to summarize what you've learned so far.

Write a 7-10 page paper that addresses the first two of the three framing questions we have been studying all semester. Utilize readings from the Reading Seminar, field experiences from the Field Seminar, and, if applicable, draw from your internship experiences. This is a very difficult assignment because of the page limitation. You must be clear and concise as your develop the most complex and powerful analysis you can. Be aware that you will be theorizing as you write this and be very clear in your papaer about the theoretical perspectives that inform your explanations.

The first two framing questions for the MUST program are as follows:

1. What are some of the root causes of increasing inequality and poverty in US cities over the past 30 years or so?

2. How do poverty and inequality get reproduced? Consider the two subquestions here:

   a) What mechanisms, systems, structures and/or behaviors perpetuate social immobility?

   b) How has the political system remained relatively stable in the face of continuing and increasing inequality and poverty?